The present invention relates to illuminating or indicating devices which are intended to equip motor vehicles.
Such devices usually include a housing serving for support and positioning of various optical components, such as one or more light sources, one or more reflecting surfaces gathering in the luminous flux emitted by these sources so as to redirect it towards glazing for enclosing and protecting the illuminating or indicating device.
The light sources used in the indicating devices may fulfill several functions: they may, for example, constitute a sidelight, a stop light, a direction-change indicator, a rear fog lamp, etc, several of these functions being capable of being grouped together into the same housing closed off by a single glazing. Likewise, the light sources used in the illuminating devices may fulfill several functions: form main beams, dipped beams, fog lamp beams, and also indicating functions such as a parking light or a direction-change indicator.
The constraints of aerodynamics and the design ideas of the stylists lead to the housing and/or the glazing having shapes which are often very different from those which result solely from technical considerations, while complying with the regulations in force as they apply to illuminating or indicating.
Hence, for example, the glazing of an illuminating and/or indicating device may extend into regions where it no longer has any optical function, but solely an esthetic or aerodynamic role, in a concern for continuity of shapes or of lines with the surrounding bodywork of the vehicle. It is thus usual to arrange in these regions, behind the protective glazing, a mask called xe2x80x9cstylingxe2x80x9d mask, provided with an appropriate coating, for example a reflecting coating, or, in the absence of a mask, to shape or to treat the housing of the illuminating or indicating device, which is then visible behind the protective glazing, so that it has a predetermined appearance, most often bright, obtained by aluminum plating of the mask which is visible through the protective glazing.
The general tendency consists in using a mask or a housing on which a reflecting layer has been deposited by aluminum plating, in front of which is placed colored or uncolored enclosing glazing. If the illuminating or indicating device includes several compartments each fulfilling an illuminating or indicating function, having different regulatory colors, by definition, the result is that the glazing cannot be of the same color in front of these different compartments.
If, particularly for reasons of style, it is desired that the enclosing glazing of a indicating device should exhibit a uniform color in front of the various compartments, one solution consists in using lightly colored glazing, and in arranging, between the light source of each compartment and the glazing, a colored filter of appropriate color with respect to that of the glazing in order, by subtractive synthesis, to obtain a indicating beam of the regulatory color.
All these known solutions give the desired result, but nevertheless exhibit drawbacks. They require one or more surface treatments of the mask or of the housing in order to give them the bright and/or colored appearance. These surface treatments consist of additional manufacturing stages which increase the cost of the finished product due to the substantial scrap rate in the course of manufacture due to defects in appearance. This is because the regions of the enclosing glazing which are not arranged so as to face an illuminating or indicating function are smooth, and leave open to view the slightest defect in metallization or in surface state which the metallization has received, for example heat marks or cavities on this surface.
Moreover, styling considerations are taking on a growing importance these days, and are becoming a major preoccupation as regards the design of motor-vehicle equipment in general, and of headlights or of indicator lights in particular, the motor-vehicle constructors wanting these headlamps or indicator lamps to be characteristic of the vehicle model which they equip, and the designers always seeking new possibilities for aesthetic integration of these illuminating or indicating devices into the vehicle. Hence novel metallization appearances are keenly sought, for example types of nickel/chrome metallization, giving a reflecting coating of a subdued color. These types of metallization are difficult to control, however, and do not give identical results for successive metallizations, and give rise to scrap rates which are too high to be tolerable.
The present invention lies in this context, and its object is to propose an illuminating or indicating device the parts of which, not participating in the production of the illuminating or indicating light beam and visible through the enclosing glazing, have a predetermined color and/or an appearance without exhibiting the drawbacks of the previous technology, that is to say not increasing the time nor the cost of manufacture nor the scrap rate, in a simple way and without disturbing the illuminating or indicating light beam.
Hence the subject of the present invention is an illuminating or indicating device for a motor vehicle, including a housing forming a support for at least one light source combined with at least one reflecting surface in order to form an illuminating or indicating beam, enclosing glazing being arranged in front of the light source, a mask or bezel being arranged between the housing and the enclosing glazing in neutral regions of the illuminating or indicating device.
According to the present invention, only the reflecting surface intended to form an illuminating or indicating beam is metallised or metallic, and the mask is made of transparent material.
According to other advantageous and non-limiting characteristics of the invention:
the mask is made of a colored transparent material;
the enclosing glazing is colored;
a colored filter is arranged between the light source and the enclosing glazing;
the colored filter is of a complementary color to that of the enclosing glazing;
in neutral regions of the illuminating or indicating device, the mask is arranged at a slight distance from the housing.
Other objects, characteristics and advantages of the present invention will emerge clearly from the description which will now be given of an example given in a non-limiting way with reference to the attached drawings.